New York, NY – In the wake of Raymond James’ acquisition of Memphis-based Morgan Keegan in January, management announced that Morgan Keegan was dropping coverage of all companies covered by its equity research department effective Friday, March 30, 2012. This is due to the layoff of most of Morgan Keegan’s equity research department as a result of the merger of the two companies.
All Research Coverage Dropped
Morgan Keegan’s director of research, Elkan Scheidt, sent out an email last Friday, which said the following:
“Effective March 30, 2012, Morgan Keegan is dropping coverage of all companies and securities presently covered by its Equity Research department. Due to analyst departure, we are changing the rating of the stocks below to Not Rated. The previous ratings, target prices and earnings estimates should no longer be relied upon.”
Morgan Keegan previously followed more than 370 companies concentrated in 9 industry sectors, including Consumer Services, Energy, Financial Services, Healthcare, Industrial/ Construction, Real Estate, Security and Defense, Technology, and Transportation.
A Number of Layoffs Announced
As a result of the integration of the two firms, Raymond James announced last week that 218 overall positions were being eliminated between the two companies. This includes 57 Morgan Keegan positions and 11 Raymond James positions in Memphis, and 16 jobs in St. Petersburg. The remaining redundancies are slated to take place in 31 cities across the country.
Headquartered in Memphis, Morgan Keegan employed approximately 3,100 people, of whom more than 1,200 were financial advisors in 57 full-service offices located in 20 states. Raymond James, on the other hand, employed approximately 5,400 financial advisors serving 2 million accounts in 2,400 locations throughout the United States, Canada and overseas.
Merger Set to Close
This past January, St. Petersburg-based Raymond James bought Morgan Keegan from Regions Financial Corp. for $930 million, expanding both its private client wealth management and capital markets businesses. The merger of the two firms is expected to close on Monday, April 2nd, 2012.